Short takes III

Apparently this is a real problem among Manhattan's educated class: preparing your kids to ace the competitive exams for kindergarten.

The NYC public schools have special kindergartens for gifted children -- 70 throughout the city -- plus an even more limited number of elite kindergartens -- 5 in all -- for the really really gifted.

Kids are selected for these programs by their score on a competitive exam -- you have to be in the 99th percentile to get in some schools. Competitive parents have been around for some time. The new problem this year is that these parents have been sending their little children to test-prep programs and getting private tutoring -- so they will ace the exams. And they have.

Scores have soared: test scores jumped by 10% this year, while those qualifying for the even more exclusive, elite programs increased by 33%.

This is kindergarten admissions, not college, fer cryin' out loud!!! Sending little 3 year olds to learn how to test well strikes me as child abuse.

So what is the purpose of these special kindergartens? To have a bunch of little geniuses sitting on their floor mats discussing Einstein and Kant? Story time readings from Finnegan's Wake?

Let them play.

Let them learn by playing. That's the business of childhood, not taking tests so they can learn higher mathematics and philosophy before they're six.

Ralph

Muslims in our government?

Let me say loud and clear: No, do not take that heading seriously. It is merely an ironic reference to my previous "Short takes II" about the muslim cleric and suppression of sexuality.

So here goes:

Remember when John Ashcroft was AG and had drapes installed to cover the indecently exposed naked breasts of the "Spirit of Justice" statue in the Great Hall of the DoJ -- which he was embarrassed to have as his background during news conferences?

Now the Virginia AG has insisted on redesigning the State Seal because the Roman goddess depicted thereon has an exposed left breast. The original design was adopted in 1776 by the VA legislature, and it has endured for 234 years. In the newly commissioned image, the goddess is "properly" clothed. Young men's virtue is protected and earthquakes are prevented -- just what the Muslim cleric would have wanted.

Man oh man. Just think of all the young men in these 234 years whose imaginations have been aroused to fever pitch right in the midst of handling state documents, with those sexy, naughty state seals showing that goddess's naked breast!!! Like the Muslim cleric said, it corrupts the morals of young men, leads to adultery, and increases the frequency of earthquakes. In VA, they tend to get hurricanes, not earthquakes. Same thing.

Actually, I don't think the VA AG's sexual obsession makes him muslim -- just one of those right-wing, fundamentalist, christian patriots who has also publicly questioned Obama's citizenship, rescinded the anti-discrimination policies for LGBT students at the U. VA., and claimed that homosexuals engage in behavior that is "offensive to natural law."

What is it with these guys and breasts? At least Ashcroft is Mormon, which gives him a little more excuse. I mean, look what naked breasts cause there -- multiple wives !!!

I think the AG is just anti-sex --- which really means he's sex-obsessed and thinks he can't control himself if there's a naked breast exposed somewhere.

Is this the new pornography? The State Seal of Virginia?

Ralph

Short takes II

1. According to chaos theory, a butterfly flapping its wings in Indonesia can set forces in motion that result in a hurricane in the Caribbean. In commenting on the recent earthquakes around the globe, a Muslim cleric said:

"Many women who do not dress moderately lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity, and spread adultery in society, which increases earthquakes."

OK, so maybe the cleric isn't spouting chaos theory -- just garden variety demonization of the power of sexuality.

2. We aren't so far out of that dark age, ourselves. An article in Time, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the FDA's approval of "the pill" for birth control, also pointed out that it wasn't until 1965 (merely 45 years ago) that the Supreme Court's Greenwald vs. Connecticut decision overturned laws still extant in 20 states that prohibited the sale of contraceptives, even to married couples.

Ralph

Religious symbol on public land

It was a narrow ruling about the transfer of public land to private ownership so that a cross could remain as part of a World War I memorial in the Mojave National Preserve; but, in effect, the Supreme Court said that a cross on public land does not necessarily violate the anti-establishment clause in the Constitution. It was the usual 5-4, conservative/liberal split.

Here are some comments about the implied meaning of crosses on memorials for fallen soldiers:

Justice Kennedy: “A Latin cross is not merely a reaffirmation of Christian beliefs. It evokes thousands of small crosses in foreign fields marking the graves of Americans who fell in battles, battles whose tragedies would be compounded if the fallen are forgotten.”

Justice Stevens, joined by Justices Ginsburg, and Sotomayer: “The cross is not a universal symbol of sacrifice. It is the symbol of one particular sacrifice, and that sacrifice carries deeply significant meaning for those who adhere to the Christian faith. . . . [Because] Congress has established no other national monument to the veterans of the Great War, this solitary cross in the middle of the desert is the national World War I memorial."

Justice Scalia: “The cross is the most common symbol of the resting place of the dead.”

ACLU lawyer Peter J. Eliasberg: Many Jewish war veterans would not want to be honored by “the predominant symbol of Christianity [that] signifies that Jesus is the son of God and died to redeem mankind for our sins.”

Justice Stevens: “Making a plain, unadorned Latin cross a war memorial does not make the cross secular. It makes the war memorial sectarian.”

The arguments are in, they are clearly divided, and the sides have been chosen. It remains to see how much the next case moves the law to the right.
Ralph

Short takes

1. Maybe it's the issue (they really can't convince middle America of the virtues of an unregulated Wall Street), but I like to think that Obama has accepted as fact that it is useless to try to get bipartisan cooperation from this bunch. After he strongly criticized Repub senators for obstructing the bill, after Harry Reid said he would keep the Senate in session all night with repeated cloture votes, and after Repubs saw they had lost public support, they gave up on the filibuster. That's the way to do it, Dems.

2. An anti-Obama Facebook site, which has attracted over 1 million members, has been accused of "praying" for Obama's death. To me, it doesn't sound so much like any serious intent but more like wishful thinking. The "threat" is really a cleverly written prayer:

"DEAR LORD, THIS YEAR YOU TOOK MY FAVORITE ACTOR, PATRICK SWAYZIE. YOU TOOK MY FAVORITE ACTRESS, FARAH FAWCETT. YOU TOOK MY FAVORITE SINGER, MICHAEL JACKSON. I JUST WANTED TO LET YOU KNOW, MY FAVORITE PRESIDENT IS BARACK OBAMA. AMEN."

But, even if the Facebook group doesn't seriously intend an assassination attempt, some crazy person might be persuaded to become their "hero." So it has to be take seriously. It is, after all, against the law to threaten the president.

Ralph

What's left?

This is a bad season for institutions.

Congress -- approval ratings scraping the bottom. Loss of trust, hyperpolarization, paralysis.

The Vatican -- how do you spell coverup in Latin?

Wall Street -- how do you spell fraud in Goldman-Sachs-ese?
Strong language coming from the Chair of the Senate Permanent Committee on Investigations today. Carl Levin used the word "shitty" 17 times in describing Goldman Sachs' allegeded unethical practices. Of course, they're back to making obscene amounts of money already.

The Republican Party. Can't seem to do anything right -- except obstruct progress. Will that sell in November?

The Boy Scouts. Courts imposed a million dollar fine for failing to deal with sexual abuse case.

Damn. The Presidency is looking pretty good by comparison (except to those who don't want to give Obama any credit at all.)

Ralph

"Imagine . . . "

Tim Wise conducts anti-racism training for teachers and medical professionals. This is from something he wrote about the current, predominantly white, militant protest groups in the U.S.

Imagine that hundreds of black protesters were to descend upon Washington DC and Northern Virginia, just a few miles from the Capitol and White House, armed with AK-47s, assorted handguns, and ammunition. And imagine that some of these protesters —the black protesters — spoke of the need for political revolution, and possibly even armed conflict in the event that laws they didn’t like were enforced by the government? Would these protester — these black protesters with guns — be seen as brave defenders of the Second Amendment, or would they be viewed by most whites as a danger to the republic? What if they were Arab-Americans?

Because, after all, that’s what happened recently when white gun enthusiasts descended upon the nation’s capital, arms in hand, and verbally announced their readiness to make war on the country’s political leaders if the need arose.

Imagine that white members of Congress, while walking to work, were surrounded by thousands of angry black people, one of whom proceeded to spit on one of those congressmen for not voting the way the black demonstrators desired. Would the protesters be seen as merely patriotic Americans voicing their opinions, or as an angry, potentially violent, and even insurrectionary mob? After all, this is what white Tea Party protesters did recently in Washington. . . .

Imagine that a black pastor, formerly a member of the U.S. military, were to declare, as part of his opposition to a white president’s policies, that he was ready to “suit up, get my gun, go to Washington, and do what they trained me to do.” This is, after all, what Pastor Stan Craig said recently at a Tea Party rally in Greenville, South Carolina. . . .

Imagine a black political commentator suggesting that the only thing the guy who flew his plane into the Austin, Texas IRS building did wrong was not blowing up Fox News instead. This is, after all, what Anne Coulter said about Tim McVeigh, when she noted that his only mistake was not blowing up the New York Times. . . .

To ask any of these questions is to answer them. Protest is only seen as fundamentally American when those who have long had the luxury of seeing themselves as prototypically American engage in it. When the dangerous and dark “other” does so, however, it isn’t viewed as normal or natural, let alone patriotic. Which is why Rush Limbaugh could say, this past week, that the Tea Parties are the first time since the Civil War that ordinary, common Americans stood up for their rights: a statement that erases the normalcy and “American-ness” of blacks in the civil rights struggle, not to mention women in the fight for suffrage and equality, working people in the fight for better working conditions, and LGBT folks as they struggle to be treated as full and equal human beings.

And this, my friends, is what white privilege is all about. The ability to threaten others, to engage in violent and incendiary rhetoric without consequence, to be viewed as patriotic and normal no matter what you do, and never to be feared and despised as people of color would be, if they tried to get away with half the shit we do, on a daily basis.

Well said.

Ralph